By Miryam Ehrlich Williamson Sometimes it takes a pair or two of extra-sharp eyes to figure out what a corporate lobbyist is up to. Here’s a good one: Monsanto’s lobbyists are trying to get the Senate to write a mandate for research and technology transfer of genetically modified agricultural techniques into S. 384: Global Food […]

By Miryam Ehrlich Williamson Sometimes – often, actually – I worry about our nation’s lack of trust in its government. In yesterday’s blog, I said if I wanted to become a dictator, I’d promote distrust so people would give up and stop paying attention. So it’s with considerable trepidation that I return to the subject […]

By Miryam Ehrlich Williamson In 1994, and for several years thereafter, I chaired the Western Massachusetts local of a trade union for freelance (independent) writers. Bill Clinton was in his second year as president. The morning after the mid-term election, in which the Democrats lost their majorities in both the House and the Senate, I […]

By Miryam Ehrlich Williamson The neighborhood in Philadelphia in which I grew up was made up almost entirely of working class and lower-middle-class whites, mostly Jewish with enough Catholics to support a church and parochial school that went from first through twelfth grade. The only racial prejudice I knew of personally as a child was […]

By Miryam Ehrlich Williamson Heading out to a meeting I knew would start way later than announced, I grabbed the March 30 issue of the New Yorker to keep my mind occupied and my prefrontal cortex from getting angry while I waited. [Note: The reference to the site of anger in the brain is an […]

By Miryam Ehrlich Williamson So far this year, three friends have come down with a serious bacterial infection known as MRSA. The acronym stands for methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. It describes forms of the staph bacterium that have evolved to be immune to antibiotics of the penicillin family, which used to be the first line of […]

By Miryam Ehrlich Williamson Not that I begrudge this hiker his rescue, but this story makes my teeth itch. A man hiking on Granite Mountain, near Seattle, was trapped in an avalanche that swept him 100 feet from the trail. Normally, that would be the end of the story and the rest of this blog […]

By Miryam Ehrlich Williamson I need to tread lightly when I approach the subject of immigration reform. I don’t know what’s right. The subject is so complicated, involving so many millions of people — both immigrants and people who were born here — that I mistrust anyone who claims to have the answer. Here’s what […]

By Miryam Ehrlich Williamson It’s one thing to say that you disagree with someone’s opinions, and another to say they are wrong. When I was a child, busy learning how the world wags and forming my ethical and social principles, we were at war (that would be the Second World War) and people on the […]

Posted by Miryam Ehrlich Williamson Here’s another gem from Truthout, the last for a while. I’m not trying to make a socialist out of you. I’m not even sure I’m a socialist, except that I believe in government of the people, by the people, and for the people. But if these facts don’t make you […]